GRRRR!!!

Man it just pisses me off when people leave comments with embedded music files!!

Sorry folks, had to vent!!

8:44 PM - 11 Comments - 13 Kudos - Add Comment

New stuff

It's been a busy month for me, actually it's been a busy summer too! After completing the 26 city sounds of Om Tour, 3 dates in Brazil and a 2 week trip to Europe, I took some time off from touring and locked myself in my air-condition-less studio (yes it's freakin' hot in there!) and I think the music has been even hotter! (Ok, that's kinda cheesy) So I hooked up with Mr. V who threw down a sick vocal hook for a new one called "It's Guud" soon to be released worldwide! Out now on Uno Recordings is my collaboration with Gram'ma Funk of Groove Armada fame. If you missed the promo, hit me up for a copy or check it out on Beatport. Sven Van Hees was here all week, we remixed his 1992 anthem "Drum Attack!!" I can't even begin to tell you how stoked I am to be working on this. Promo's to come soon on Uno!!

I'm off to the Bay Area this weekend for shows in Sacramento and San Francisco for the Love Fest. Should be a ringer! Then it's off to Asia and finally Amsterdamn for the ADE conference!! In the mean time I'll be sweating my ass off in my hotter than hell studio, working on my new album and some other little tidbits.

3:53 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

i-crack

So I'm writing this latest update on my flossy new iPhone 3g and I
have to say while not perfect it's the best smartphone I've owned to
date. I'd love to see a couple improvements like copy paste, mms
messaging and video capability and longer battery life but for now I'm
more than satisfied!

Downloading apps from the store has become almost addictive! There
are some bonified useful applications on there! Not to mention
entertaining! We're all hooked... Well heather, fred, danny and I are
at least! Colette is still banging away on her precious blackberry
which I love to poke fun at! The other day I was showing off one of
my new apps much to her shagrin. Apparently her husband Thom has an
iPhone as well and has been gently lambasting her brickberry! Oops I
meant blackberry.

Michelle and I waited in line at the Beverly Center for nearly two hours to snatch up our
new toys! She got the 8 gig black one, while I had to settle for the
16 gig white version. They ran out of the black ones. But who knows
maybe white is making a comeback?! If not I'm told I can exchange it
for a black one later. I'd never want to appear so uncouth as to use
an out of fashion phone! Not I! LOL. Let's not even talk about that
crappy razor I suffered with the past year. Pfft.

9:39 PM - 7 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Satisfaction

I'm guilty, I haven't written in my blog in weeks! Tabernac! Apparently that's a really really really bad word in Montreal. Funny, cause to me, the literal english translation - Tabernacle - sounds about as benign a word as there is in the English Dictionary! I now find myself using it and having a little chuckle. hehe. So, just to get you up to speed our tour has been going full steam. After amazing show's in Calgary, Toronto, New York and St. Louis it was time to hit Montreal! After sitting on the tarmac in New York for an hour, our flight finally took off. Bless Air Canada for their stellar in flight entertainment options. I was able to watch "Flawless" with Demi Moore and Michael Caine, a very entertaining if not a bit trite film set in 1960's London. The flight flew by (bad pun, bad pun!). After landing in Montreal, we had a riveting time waiting in line after line after line getting our work Visa's. What should have been a short 2 hour trip turned into a 6+ hour marathon! Finally made it the hotel and I promptly jumped in bed and took a nap. All that traveling wears you out! I'm not joking! Before I knew it, it was dinner time. After waiting 45 minutes for Shane (the talent buyer for Stereo) to pick us up for dinner, I finally called him and bitched him out. Colette and I had been waiting curbside for 45 minutes! And we were Tabernacking hungry Dammit!! He was not in the mood and neither was I, but all tempers were soon assuaged as we devoured our dinners at some "scenester" type restaurant along Rue St. Laurent (is that right?). Shane and I made up and bonded on the way to the venue, he spent some time in Cali and was married in Costa Rica - two of my favorite places in the world so he can't be that bad a guy. We arrived at the venue and Colette was doing her thing oh so well, Danny was watching Less Than Zero while Fred, Heather and I downed a couple shots of Vodka. But guys, it was sad to see the legendary club Stereo. For those of you who haven't heard, it burned down a few weeks ago. Word on the street is it's arson, someone doused the place with kerosene and lit a match. Go figure on who, why or what their motivation was! That place is legendary. Anyhow, we still did our show, but in the basement - Stereo Bar. A somewhat small but very enthusiastic crowd was out in support. Thanks Frenchies! Before I knew it, the night was over, at least for me. I played a short but sweet 45 minute set. I just couldn't stay through Heather's set though, I was freakin' tired man! I jumped in a cab and headed to the hotel and went straight to bed. I'm now somewhere above Lake Michigan on my way to Detroit. Up next club V at the MGM Grand! Hmmm.

*Now you too can be Benny Bennassi! Try importing this into your text edit program on your Mac and selecting the "Speak" option!

Push me, and then go pull me, till I can get my, satisfaction

Creative... ??? Eh, not so much

3:32 PM - 8 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

Calgary kicked some serious ASS

I only have a couple minutes before I have to head to the club for tonights show in Toronto, but I just want to thank all the wonderful people, cowboy hats and all, who made last nights show in Calgary so freakin dope! I'll fill ya'll in later on the details, just had to give props... VIVA CANADA!!

9:11 PM - 2 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Looking for Graphic Designer

If you think you've got what it takes, please get in touch! Send me some sample work, I'm looking for someone to do cool edgy graphic design stuff for my label, Uno Recordings.

A.

12:00 AM - 6 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Geisha in Washington DC!
Category: Parties and Nightlife

So maybe our tour isn't totally jinxed after all. After our arrival in DC yesterday afternoon, we found out that Stereo - the legendary club in Montreal, where we are booked to play in a couple of weeks - burned to the ground! So that's nightclub 3 that has shut down since we began our little House Of Om tour! We were supposed to be at FIVE last night, here in DC but they had their liquor license suspended last weekend and we had to scramble to move our show. With almost no promotion, save for a couple of last minute email blasts, I have to say we pulled it off! Geisha, though very um er... cozy, turned out to be the perfect venue! It didn't take long before the venue was packed and sweat was dripping off the walls! At one point after my set, I tried to get some fresh air but thanks to this warm DC weather, the air outside was nearly as hot as inside the club. What a great group though. So responsive and open minded. I played some new tracks to great fanfare and even sold some CD's. (also handed out a few to some peeps ;) LG even made it down from Baltimore to open up the night, thanks LG (and I finally found out what LG stands for - Love Grove!) I also met a very enthusiastic kid (who's name escapes me at the moment) who just turned 18, who was so nice to meet and speak with a bit. It's exciting and very refreshing for me to see this new generation of kids coming up the ranks and getting turned on by house music. To the guy who requested "When I Sleep," thank you. I haven't heard that track in ages and it was great to finish out my set with it! So even though Karu in Miami shut it's doors, FIVE lost it's liquor license and Stereo burned to the ground, we are still managing to have a KICK ASS TOUR! Thank you to all who came out last night, see you next time!

Happy 4th of July!!!

3:54 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

EDC Los Angeles!!
Current mood: Amazing
Category: Amazing Parties and Nightlife

Damn, what can I say.. last night was up there with some of the best gigs I've had, possibly ever. I'm so proud of LA for coming out in FULL force to support such a great and diverse lineup of electronic music. Walking out into the coliseum's main stage and seeing Moby rocking out to what must have been 40-50 thousand people was awe inspiring. Truly worthy of an international scale event, Electric Daisy Carnival was off the hook! I had an incredible time.

It was soo good to see so many happy people gettin' down to so much amazing music. It was also great to have so many of my friends show up to check out the madness. I even saw Kemal of Purple Music and resident dj at Balance! Heather, Mark, Fred and Colette all set me up to bring the house down last night. Sam, Edean, Michelle, Jenni and I took it upon ourselves to explore the stadium on foot, but not before heading to my trailer and emptying a bottle of vodka into a bottle of orange juice. I think it must've been 3 parts vodka, one part oj! Thanks Jenni. We were trying to find the artist VIP area but security shooed us away because they were about to do a fireworks show and no one was allowed to pass through the backstage area. We took our oj/vodka mixture which I dubbed, the "highschool" beverage, and headed up to the nosebleed seats just in time for the fireworks! Moby was standing on the turntables while explosions were going off over our heads! It was pretty crazy. Not exactly a mind blowing pyro technics show, but it was pretty cool. I looked up to the giant scoreboard to see my name in giant letters (along with all the other artists names) announcing my set time - 2 am to 4 am! That was cool, did someone get a picture of that?! We decided to head back to our stage and catch a bit of Heather's set before I did my thing. I wasn't sure how many people would still be hanging around by 2am, but it became pretty clear that folks were there for the duration! Our stage had a great set up right under the entrance to the coliseum, sort of like some Roman temple towering over our party. I played a bunch of new tracks, Wolfgang Gartner's brand spanking new remix of my soon to be released track with Gramma Funk - "Funk Nasty" was a particularly memorable one! Michelle was dancing on the speakers and taking some rad pics and I think she was surprised that no one told her to get down! She's a speaker junkie, but security always kicks her off - classic, I love her! I'll post some photos as soon as I download them from my camera - where's that usb cable anyway!?!? My new LA friends Erik and Kris were also in the house and it was really fun to play their tracks and watch the feedback from the crowd light up their faces! It's so fun to share the experience with people. There was this one guy up front who kept shouting "play breath you in!" but I couldn't understand what he was saying! I finally figured it out though and dropped his request right near the end of the night! I closed it out with Trentemollers lovely remix of "Give a Little" to a massive round of applause. What a way to finish things off. Our stage was packed until the very end with one of the best crowds of recent memory. Thank you again LA, you ROCK!

Would love to hear from you and know how your night went too! Ok, signing off now... Euro 2008 is on and I gotta watch Germany get spanked (hopefully)!

8:00 AM - 6 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Baltimore :(

Well, you can't win em all. Baltimore, where were you?! I've had some great times in this city, but since LG and Adam and the rest of the house crew left Mosaic, this town has never been the same. I appreciated the hospitality though, Bart and the crew were very friendly and cool. Oh, I guess Danny (our tour manager) sold one of my tshirts to someone. Thank you! Hopefully next time through, Baltimore will show me what its made of. I know you got more than this guys! Spinal Tap anyone? Good night folks, that's it for me. I have about 3 hours before I have to leave for the airport so gonna try and get some shut eye. Sweet dreams.

8:50 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Rock On San Diego

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Finally a dope night on the Sounds of Om Tour! (I'm eating a cookie as I write this) Heather is closing it out once again, but this time to a pumped up, enthusiastic crowd! After an 8 hour drive down from Santa Cruz (My lovely girlfriend Michelle and I spent the week with my family:), I wasn't sure what to expect here in SD. We arrived, tired and spent from so much time on the road. You may be asking yourself why the hell did he drive!?! Well, simply put I needed to transport some furniture to LA, this great vintage chair that my aunt gave me. Anyhoo, we made it to LA in under 5 hours, dropped the chair off at home, returned the rental truck and met up with Danny the tour manager. The drive to SD took nearly as long as the drive from Santa Cruz to LA!!! It seems all these crazy gas prices haven't deterred folks from hitting the road, what's it gonna take?!?! $10/gallon? The stop at Del Taco for some Beans and taco's wasn't really fitting the bill either. Although, I must say - Del Taco makes some pretty tasty beans! If anyone has a nutrition chart for them, I'd love to see it. Anything that cheap, and that tasty has got to be really really bad for you.

So as you probably know, the first weekend was hohum, nothing special save for the glowstick kids in Denver and the preparty next to the Beatport office with Tom Hoch and friends, but tonight was really cool. Some amazing people came out in support of good house music. I played a short set (only 45 minutes) but had a great time. Felt like Miami for a minute - especially with this heatwave we've been experiencing! mmmm this cookie is the bomb! Thank you San Diego for restoring my faith in the house scene. On Broadway, thank you for hooking up a great night. Beautiful venue, dope crowd and sick sound system.

Next stop - Baltimore!

1:04 AM - 7 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment